MILESTONES

We used to play a game called Milleborne.  Milestones.  One of the cards you drew was "Rollez".  GO.  The object of the game was to navigate obsticles along life's path to the end goal.

 

Life is like that.  There are milleborne all along the way.  They tell you how far you have come.  How much distance and time have passed.  They also give you a clue how far it is to the goal. Two just jumped up.

 

First Milleborne: a few months ago, the man who was my father for most of my life after my dad died, Earl Redlin, fell down and broke his hip.  At his age this was not a light event. 

The healing from the hip replacement surgery has been slow and painful.  Being 90 didn't help.  I mention that because he came home from the nursing home this last weekend. 

 

It has been painful for the family and a bit divisive.  That's normal.  In my ministry work I have been involved in helping people thru this kind of thing when families go thru crisis and people are hurt. 

 

This is no different even if its your own family.  No one is exempt.  I have more than once set myself down and counseled myself on how to deal with all this as I would have counseled anyone else.  I hope I gave myself good counsel.

 

Now he's home.  Things will be different.  Probably difficult.  But, this is a milestone.

 

Second Milleborne: Watching the Bears game Sunday afternoon as they beat the Saints to go on to  Superbowl 41 made me realize, wait, we were HERE in IL for Superbowl 20.  We have been married 40 1/2 years.  We have lived in Illinois longer as a couple than we ever lived anywhere else.  We aren't from anywhere else now.  We are Illinois folks.

 

Somehow that milestone came as a shock to me.  Not the math, the reality.

 

Where did the time go, what about all those mileposts along the way?

 

Seize the Day.  Here comes another milestone.

 

There is only today.  Today has enough troubles of it's own without borrowing from tomorrow. No one is guaranteed tomorrow or even the next minute.